The Honors Program is proud to present our current Honors students sharing their thesis
projects. Please come support them. Refreshments will be served. Students interested
in the Honors Program are encouraged to attend and participate.

Summaries of the 2010 Presentations

Consciousness Studies: Implications and Importance

~Adrienne Danner~

Consciousness, and the relationship between the mind and the body, remains one of
the most elusive relationships to understand and explain, despite the vast number
of attempts to do so. My goal is not to explain consciousness, but to focus on why
we should place importance on obtaining an answer and to explore the ramifications
for each of the main theories. It may be that we are already beginning to create computers
and machines which have the potential for consciousness, and therefore, we need to
understand the scope of what we are dealing with and to consider our responsibilities
if we do create a conscious machine.

The News that is Fit to Print: How the Relationship between the Press, the Public
and Policy-Makers in the U.S. has Changed and Who Changed it

~Dan DeMay~

This study offers a look at how the U.S. media has gone from political mouthpiece
to objective reporter to a hybrid of both. Comparing the press during the Nixon administration
to that during George W. Bush's, it looks at where the media served its watchdog role
and where it didn't. The report offers a few explanations as to how and why the media
failed in certain areas, along with at least one possible solution for the future
of media.

Affordable and Sustainable Residential Buildings: Keys to Promoting Sustainability
in the Built Environment

~Vy Phan Thao Nguyen~

Sustainable architecture refers to strategies which minimize the use of natural resources,
optimize energy-efficiency, and recycle building waste. A key issue in realizing sustainable
development is to incorporate the economic aspect of a building into its sustainable
design; especially within the residential building sector, cost causes sustainable
architecture to be inaccessible to most of the population. Therefore, the key to promoting
sustainable architecture on a large scale depends on affordable, as well as sustainable,
residential buildings.

A Study of Artists and Their Work

~Christina Coronado~

Over the past few quarters I have been studying four artists from different time
periods in an attempt to determine what characteristics make each individual an “artist.”
Through my research, I began to wonder what exactly defines art, more generally, and
am currently exploring the larger question, “What makes an individual's creation,
a piece of art?”

Medicalized Maternity Care in America

~Sara Snedeker~

Over one hundred years ago women were just beginning to give birth in hospitals.
Today, almost 85% of American babies are born by the hands of an Obstetrician. Yet,
despite this intervention of modern, hospitalized medicine, America ranks 42nd among
industrialized nations for Infant Mortality, and Cesareans and other medical interventions
are on the rise. Given statistics like these, modern western approach to child birth
may not, in fact, be optimal for the child or the mother. Come learn about the American
maternity system and how the birthing context and experience affects mothers both
physically and emotionally.

Religious fundamentalists are sounding forth a battle cry in our present age as they
seek to usher in the Kingdom of God as the new world order. They have formed a counter-culture
wherein the members oppose mainstream institutions and recreate past traditions which
they design as the blueprint of a utopian society. Diametrically opposed to secular
humanism, they proclaim absolutist ideals and do not tolerate divergence from their
standard of purity. Amalgamating into a unified being, members sacrifice their personal
identities in pursuit of the collectivist dream. This fundamentalist cry rings with
power and our world must listen. As members from this counter cultural movement, siblings
Andreas and Ava Munson, outline the basic tenets and structural components of extremism
as they offer a case study of Christian fundamentalism, exemplified by Vision Forum.
They relate the story of their exodus and reveal the dangers a perfectionist-driven
vision poses to the ideal of liberalism and the spirit of an open society.